


water is taught by thirst

by possibilityleft



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Fusion, Fusion Philosophy, Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:51:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6830455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lapis emerged from the ocean and started spending time with the Crystal Gems, she didn't expect Garnet would be the one who liked her least. [No spoilers past S1.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	water is taught by thirst

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written several months ago, before Peridot came to join the team and before the various leaks and new canon that we are soon expecting. I think it holds up okay regardless.

Lapis would have pegged Pearl as the hold-out. She knew that at least one of the Gems would try to convince Steven she was irredeemable, and her vote had been Pearl, because she knew how pearls thought. They were constantly considering the numbers, history, and the future -- it was their job, after all. And this Pearl had a ruthless streak a mile wide. If Steven weren't here, Lapis knew she'd be bubbled right now, or worse.

But Steven had been there to greet her when she crawled out of the surf. He'd called her his Beach Summer Fun Buddy, even though it wasn't summer and the sea was roiling under her unsteady feet. The water had carried her back here after the fight.

Jasper hadn't stood a chance, but that didn't mean she hadn't fought hard. Lapis wanted nothing more than to retreat to her gem and rest, but she'd laid out on the water and let the tides do as they would. She suspected that she'd directed them at least a little. She let Steven drag her up out of the reach of the tides, babbling about dreams and something she was pretty sure he called a Dogcopter, but she was barely listening. She was waiting, but she didn't have to wait long. The three shadows stood above her. She closed her eyes and bit her lip, and then she wobbled into a sitting position and glared up at them. If they were going to judge her, they would look at her when they did it.

The fusion was impassive. The pearl was nervous. The amethyst shot her a skeptical glance, and then shrugged.

When Amethyst offered a hand, Lapis took it and began to stand. She was independent, not stupid. Pearl took a step back, glancing over at Steven, and Lapis knew she wished Steven wasn't here. But Steven rushed forward to support her other side, wrapping his warm little hand around hers.

"Where is Jasper?" the fusion asked. She hadn't moved.

"Not here," Lapis said, and she spat blood into the sand, the blood that had welled up, thick in her mouth, when she found her feet.

"Where's Jasper?" the fusion asked again.

"Is she going to be nice now?" Steven asked hopefully, and Lapis wanted to lie to them both.

"Bubbled," Lapis said. "Don't worry about her."

Garnet turned and walked away. Pearl hurried to catch up with her, wrapping her hand possessively around Garnet's arm.

"Come on," Steven said worriedly. "We'll take a nap. You know how to do that, right? Me and Amethyst are pros! We'll show you!"

"Sure," Lapis said.

*

The next thing she remembered was a wet hand on her back. A chill went down her spine. Behind her, Steven laughed, sounding embarrassed.

"Sorry, I just thought... I mean, your Gem didn't look broken again or anything, but you've been asleep a long time, and I thought maybe..."

She was facing the seat of Steven's couch, and someone had thrown a blanket over her. She wiggled around to face him, wrapping the blanket around her like a cocoon.

"You thought you should heal me," Lapis said, and it shouldn't have surprised her like it did, as much of a gift as it had been the first time he offered.

"...Yeah," Steven admitted. "Are you okay?"

His tiny brow was furrowed, his face inches from her, twisted in concern. For a moment, she wanted her mirror eyes back, to reflect only what she was given.

"Garnet said that Malachite was... bad for you guys," Steven said, and she knew he was trying to be diplomatic in his phrasing. "I didn't know if Jasper hurt you. Or Malachite did."

"Well, she hurt my feelings," Lapis said, and made a raspberry noise in his direction until he laughed.

*

Of course Lapis knew she was a prisoner. One of the Gems was always with her. She couldn't move an inch toward the door or toward the warp pad without being shadowed. On the more suffocating days, she wanted to scream at them. If she wanted to escape, she would. She could take flight at any time, punch through the laughably thin roof, and fly away.

But where would she go?

She stayed. She walked on the beach with Amethyst and Steven, even if Amethyst was a little tense when she got close to the water. (Like she needed to be _close_.) They introduced her to fry bits, which she liked, and digestion, which she didn't. When the Gems needed to talk about her (she assumed), they gave Steven some money and he took her to the movies. She often fell asleep. She liked the deep bass and bright lights on her face, although most of the plots were nonsensical to her.

When Pearl was watching over her, they talked about Homeworld.

It started simply enough. They were in Steven's room. Amethyst, Garnet, and Steven were out chasing a corrupted Gem, and Pearl was doing the dishes.

"When did you leave Homeworld?" Pearl asked, over the soft sounds of clinking glass. She didn't look up from her work. Lapis almost thought she'd imagined the question.

"I don't know, how long was I underwater?" Lapis asked flatly. So far as euphemisms went, it was simple, and didn't convey even a moment's worth of the horror.

"Before," Pearl said, ducking her head down to scrub something furiously. "Before... the mirror."

"What is it now?" Lapis asked again, and Pearl told her without hesitation what date and time it would be on Homeworld. She was off by a few months, Lapis thought, given her most recent visit there, but she didn't say that to Pearl.

Lapis told her how long, feeling the gulf stretch wide within her. Pearl brightened.

"We left for Earth only a few decades after that," she told Lapis, as if they were friends now, as if she wasn't holding Lapis prisoner and just making conversation.

Lapis had been lounging on the couch staring at the ceiling. She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees.

"It was better then," she said. "Simpler."

Pearl was quiet long enough that Lapis thought the conversation was over and lay back down.

"Was it really?" Pearl said. She was drying the dishes now, and for a moment she wrung the cloth in her hands. "Because I used to think so, until I really thought about it. It was... home. But mostly, I hated it. Rose made it bearable."

"Rose Quartz?" Lapis asked, as if the portrait wasn't hanging above the door, as if she hadn't recognized the Gem at the core of Steven's being.

Pearl nodded, and then Steven slammed open the door in his excitement.

"I bubbled it!" he said, and Pearl had to congratulate him, and the conversation ended there.

But there were others. Sometimes they talked about the Towers, or the Trial Fields, or the way it felt to be packed in with others for travel, the jobs they had done. They had never met on Homeworld; Pearl had been born after Lapis left, but it was close enough.

Pearl didn't start inviting her on missions, or anything like that, but after a while, her eyes were less guarded.

*

Garnet didn't waver. Steven told her once in passing that Garnet had the ability to see futures, and Lapis suspected that this was why Garnet didn't trust her. Especially at the beginning, she had planned dozens of escapes. Nowadays, she didn't bother. Homeworld would come here, or they would not. She was on Earth, with other Gems. It was what she had.

No one asked her if she would fight on their side, if Homeworld came. Steven assumed she would, but that didn't surprise anyone.

When she was with Amethyst or Pearl or Steven, Lapis could pretend she was here by choice. Amethyst and Steven made her laugh, and she and Pearl had an understanding, at least when Lapis wasn't playing pranks on her with Amethyst and Steven. Water was a versatile instrument.

Garnet was a deep well of silence. The longest conversations Lapis had had with her involved careful instructions. They did not talk about Garnet's life, or her components' lives, and Garnet didn't ask about Lapis either. She was uninterested in talking about Homeworld or Beach City. When Lapis tried to start conversations, she rarely replied, except to a direct question. Lapis knew that she could be gentle and friendly -- that was the way Steven talked about her, in answer to Lapis's too-casual questions. Amethyst and Pearl depended on her, letting her decide their missions and the day's activities.

 

"Do you hate lapis lazulis?" she asked in frustration one day. Steven was in town and Pearl and Amethyst were at a fusion practice Lapis wasn't supposed to know about. Garnet was leaning against a support beam in the middle of Steven's room. Lapis had been watching television for a few hours, but it was becoming dull. Every time she moved toward the door, Garnet said, "No," so she clearly wasn't supposed to do anything else until the others returned.

"No," Garnet said in answer to her question.

"So it's just me, then."

"Yes."

"Why?" Lapis asked, getting up from her comfortable nest on the couch, crossing her arms.

Garnet didn't answer. The quiet stretched out until the TV's quiet mumbling began to annoy Lapis. She switched it off. They sat in darkness. Neither of them needed the light to see, even though it was getting dark out.

"What did you do with Jasper?" Garnet asked finally, a question that took Lapis off guard. It wasn't that they hadn't asked about Jasper before, but since Lapis claimed to have bubbled her, and she hadn't returned to Beach City with warships, there seemed no reason to doubt Lapis's word.

"Bubbled her," Lapis said. She knew she was pouting a little.

"Why did you fuse with her?" Garnet said, and suddenly she was standing in front of Lapis, looming over her, her expression hidden behind her visor. Lapis scowled up at her and didn't back away.

"Why do you care?" she asked. She knew the answer, and Garnet knew that she knew the answer. Garnet said nothing.

"You know, I saved you," Lapis said scornfully. "If I hadn't done what I did, you'd all be bubbled or shattered right now. Jasper would have fought you until you were all powder, and she would have brought Steven back to Homeworld, even if she had to make me fly them all the way there."

"It was a possibility," Garnet said. "But you didn't do that for us. You did it for yourself."

"Oh, so you do everything for the best of your team? Everything?"

"Yes," Garnet answered without hesitation.

"Well, guess what. I'm not part of your team," Lapis said. She paced in a small circle, pressing her fingers hard into her elbows.

"Yes," Garnet said.

Lapis pushed past Garnet, and Garnet didn't stop her from leaving the house and walking down the beach. She just followed, implacable.

"I could show you where Jasper is," she said, the words spilling out of her mouth. The secret had grown up in her and filled her completely. Now it was escaping. Lapis was great at running away.

She didn't know what to do about wanting to stay.

"Where is she?" Garnet asked without moving as Lapis walked into the surf until it pulled down at her dress. She gestured wide to the ocean.

Garnet walked into the ocean with her. She didn't make any attempts to swim and immediately began to sink to the bottom of the ocean floor.

Lapis rolled her eyes. If Garnet wanted to walk all the way, this was going to take _forever_. But fine.

It was impossible to measure time under the ocean, as deep as they went. Lapis didn't mind the fish brushing past her curiously, or the way the sand and dirt felt gritty and slick under her feet, but she hoped Garnet did. It took a while for her to let go of the irritation and just walk. At first, she hadn't been sure that she'd be able to find Malachite's former lair. She'd been barely conscious when she left it. But her feet led her true. She leaned down and picked up the bubble that she'd tucked under a natural rock shelf. She turned and handed it to Garnet.

It was too dark down here to see what she always imagined when she thought about it -- the shattered remnants of Jasper's golden gem, bright in the moonlight.

Garnet gestured, and the bubble disappeared with a pop as the water rushed in to cover the space she'd cleared. She'd sent the bubble back to the temple, where it would stick out like a sore thumb among their morbid collection, bright blue.

Then they turned back toward home.

*

When they came back out of the water, Steven wasn't waiting this time. The moon was out, but Lapis had no idea how much time had passed. Garnet was right behind her, and as soon as they were out of the tide's reach, Garnet sat down on the sand.

After a moment, Lapis sat down too, at a safe distance. Her emotions battled within her. She was glad someone knew finally what had happened to Jasper, but she was also unsure what this would mean to her standing here. Now that Garnet knew, maybe she wouldn't want to keep Lapis around. Of course, Garnet had crushed plenty of Gems during the war. She might even applaud what Lapis had done. But Lapis didn't think that was what she wanted. She'd killed Jasper because it was Jasper or her, and because she could _never_ be Malachite again. Not for Steven, not for anyone.

"Steven might be able to heal her someday," Garnet said, and the thought sucked the breath from Lapis. The terror rose up again, and the rage, and for a moment, she felt all her extra arms around her, grasping.

"Do you think she deserves a chance?" Garnet asked, and it was the most honest thing Garnet had ever asked her. Lapis wasn't stupid. She knew what Garnet was really talking about.

"Steven would say so," she said, climbing to her feet. She offered Garnet a hand.

"Without a doubt," Garnet agreed, letting Lapis pull her to her feet. The two of them walked slowly up the beach to the quiet house.


End file.
